FCPS Construction a Boon for More than Construction Jobs

Fayette County Public Schools began an ambitious program of renovating and constructing new elementary, middle and high schools right when other industries were scaling back due to a sagging economy, near the end of the last decade.

Since 2008, 15 new construction or renovation projects have been completed at various elementary, middle and high schools. Another eight will be completed in either 2014 or 2015.

The latest construction boom will include the school district’s sixth traditional high school, to be located at 1970 Winchester Road between Patchen Wilkes Drive and Sir Barton Way on the city’s east side.

In addition to the groundbreaking for the new high school in 2015, the district will also begin construction of two new elementary schools: one at Passage Mound Way, east of I-75, and the other in the Georgetown Road–Spurr Road area.

“We’re very excited to design and bring a new high school onboard, something that we know has been needed for a long time,” said Mary Wright, chief operating officer for Fayette County Public Schools. One of Wright’s responsibilities is to oversee facility design and construction in the district.

“We have been making a positive impact on the economy in Lexington,” Wright said. “I can’t help but think that the activity we had [during the recession] provided lots of opportunities for people to work in the construction industry. This has come since the community allowed us to collect an extra nickel [per $100 of assessed property valuation] for construction and renovation at our facilities.”

The yet-unnamed new high school will have the greatest economic impact. The construction phase is expected to begin in the early summer of 2015. The district anticipates 24 months of building that will end in the summer of 2017, in time to open for the start of the 2017-’18 school year.

The total construction cost for the high school will be about $55 million, according to W

right. Add to that such things as land acquisition, surveying, design fees and outfitting the new building and athletic facilities and grounds, and the total bill reaches $75 million.

“With the total high school project worth that much, it is good economically,” said Tom Shelton, superintendent of Fayette County Public Schools.

In addition to the two years of construction work, home values near the new high school are expected to rise. More new home construction could follow, as could additional commercial development.

“We know [the high school] will promote growth around it, and that’s exciting because we believe education and economic development are one and the same,” Shelton said.

In addition to its busy schedule of renovations and new construction, Fayette County Public Schools is the second largest employer in the county, after the University of Kentucky.

FCPS has not yet closed on the proposed high school property, which is about the same size (49 acres) as the Dunbar High School campus, the latest entirely new traditional high school added by FCPS. Planners did an overlay of the campuses of Paul Laurence Dunbar and also Bryan Station High School [which itself opened a newly constructed building in 2007] over the planned new site to make certain there would be enough space for athletic fields and a stadium, as well as the required square footage for the new building.

Selecting the site was tricky, Wright said.

“There are not a lot of 50-acre tracts of land available within the Urban Services Boundary,” she said.

Wright said efforts will be made to lower the carbon footprint of the new high school, but it won’t be a LEED-certified [Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design] building.

“We will certainly incorporate the sustainable features we feel we can get our money back on,” Wright said.

As for why this particular site was chosen, school officials took into consideration where student enrollment growth was happening and looked at the present schools and their capacities. Henry Clay High School is the most overcrowded, Wright said.

“We know we will have to realign our student assignments. It will be a countywide redistricting. We’ll shift kids around in every school,” Wright explained.

The district is planning for up to 2,000 students in the new high school, but it is hoped that enrollment will start out at 1,600 to 1,800 students, with room to grow. FCPS has a total of 10,358 students enrolled in its current five high schools.

“We’re very excited that the new high school is finally becoming a reality,” Shelton said. “It has been especially needed because of student growth in the district. Each incoming high school class has been larger than the exiting senior class, so some high schools are over capacity.”

With the school district having to wait three-plus years for the new high school to open, how it will cope will be important.

“Between our technical schools expanding, our new program at Locust Trace [agriscience farm] and our existing high schools, we should be able to manage during that time,” Shelton said.

Next, Fayette County Schools will be looking for property to buy for its STEAM Academy. STE

AM is the acronym for science, technology, engineering, art and math. It is a blended high school, which means it serves students from across the district, and works in partnership with the University of Kentucky. The program is temporarily housed in the former Johnson Elementary School on East Sixth Street.